Five years ago, about 30 people crowded into a small room at Video Symphony in Burbank to listen to Ralph Fairweather demo Final Cut Pro 1.2.5. Thus began lafcpug, which today boasts a membership of over 4000 people worldwide. This month we celebrate our fifth birthday with a look at one of the most talked about tools to come along in quite some time; Final Touch by Silicon Color. Plus tips and tricks for Low budget/No budget filmmakers, encoding with Compressor, fact and fiction about Apple's move to Intel, more on FCP 5, Stump The Gurus, Show and Tells, and World Famous Raffle. All in one night! And Balloons. Oh yeah, and clowns too.

Agenda

6:45- 7:15PM - Stump the GurusJoin FCP Guru Ken Stone,Andrew Balis and special guest Guru, Philip Hodgetts as they will attempt to answer all of your questions and solve all of your problems concerning FCP. If they can't solve your problem or answer your How 2, then you go home with a problem but you still got out of the house, so that's not a bad thing.

7:20PM - 7:35PM - "Edit it in the Viewer in FCP 5" - Andrew BalisYou can open clips from the Timeline into the Viewer, but do you know you can ripple, roll or slip the clips directly in the Viewer? And this is not a new feature! Its there in earlier versions of Final Cut as well. Yes, the Viewer is not just a source window.
Andrew Balis will show you how.

7:40PM - 8:00PM - "The Art of Encoding Using Compressor" - Brian GaryWe all got it but do you know how to use it or even understand it? Filmmaker Brian Gary of Flying Chaucer Films, along with Steve Martin of Ripple Training have created a Training DVD titled "The Art of Compression Using Compressor." Brian will show us a teaser of this DVD set to ship in July, and give us tips on compressing for DVD, HD-DVD, the Web or CD.

8:05PM - 8:25PM - "Anatomy of a Scene: Tips for No Budget/Low Budget Filmmakers" - Mark Stolaroff
From Mark:I will be showing two sets of clips from my work-in-progress feature "True Love". Each set will include a Behind The Scenes montage of a scene, that gives an idea of the preparation of that scene, followed by the actual scene as it would appear in the film. This is a kind of $1.25 version of Sundance Channel's Anatomy of a Scene. (CAVEATS: The film is not completed yet, so there is no real sound design or color correction to speak of.)

ABOUT "TRUE LOVE"

"True Love" is the third feature by acclaimed director Henry Barrial. Henry's first feature, "Some Body" was accepted in to Dramatic Competition at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival. It was subsequently picked up by Lot 47 Films and released theatrically in the U.S. This was a considerable achievement, given that "Some Body" was made for about $3000 and was shot without a crew (no sound, makeup, grip, etc), just the director and DP each operating a Canon XL1.

"True Love" was accepted in to the Sundance Screenwriters Lab. The script was conceived in a unique workshopping process with a group of actors, much the same way a Mike Leigh film is conceived. It was written for a much higher budget, but when the original producers were unable to raise that money, Henry decided to do it "no-budget". I came on board with my producing partner Ron Judkins and we decided we could do it for around $50,000. The experiment, however, was to see if we could make it like a "real" movie, with a full crew, all the departments and the accompanying production value, for $50,000. Ron, a director in his own right ("The Hi-Line", Sundance 1999) is also a two-time Academy Award winner for Sound and he wanted to see how well we could combine the advantages of studio filmmaking with the flexibility of no-budget filmmaking.

"True Love" was shot with a Panasonic DVX100a in 24p Advanced mode in 22 days. It was (is) edited on a single-processor PowerMac G4 with Final Cut Pro 4.

8:30PM - 8:40PM - Apple Goes Intel: Fact and Fiction - Philip HodgettsPhilip Hodgetts of Intelligent Assistance will tell us all about Apple's move to the Intel processor and what it "really" means for the creative professional.

8:40PM - 9:00PM - BreakThis is a chance to hang out and meet and greet and get your problems solved. Huge/Ciprico Systems will be in the Lobby showing off their awesome storage solutions. Intelligent Assistance will be in Lobby selling their latest creations, and talking about the newPro Apps Hub. Snacks and Beer and Wine will be on sale in the lobby. Proceeds go to the Gallery Theater.

9:00PM - 9:30PM - Final Touch Color Correcter - Roland Wood
Silicon Color's Roland Wood will show off what is perhaps the most talked about Color Correcters to come along in quite some time; Final Touch
FinalTouch SD was designed from the ground up as a digital color finishing tool. Today's needs are met in an uncompromising product that works with SD QuickTIme media in realtime-meaning a colorist can manipulate primaries, secondaries, effects and geometries (pan-scan-rotate-zoom) either while the content is playing or in single frame mode. No proxies are required to accomplish this groundbreaking throughput.

FinalTouch represents the most advanced set of color finishing tools offered today. Providing full support for the highest possible bit-depths, both internally and to the display.

FinalTouch offers colorists an intuitive feel through an optional control surface that is mapped in every detail to the feature sets of the product. This allows for much faster and more dynamic control over the color finishing session.

9:35PM - 9:45PM - "The Short Attention Span Show" - Kerry Kirkham Owyeung - Show and TellCome find out what happens when a girl locks herself in a dark room with a pot of coffee and her G4 Powerbook. THE SHORT ATTENTION SPAN SHOW is a fresh, colorful, and caffeinated adventure made and hosted by Kerry Kirkham, an upbeat filmmaker with a short attention span. Get a taste of the first four episodes featuring: cars, auto racing, a Japanese tall ship, food and wine, fun special events, wildlife, arts and artists, and a real live duck with an afro! You can log onto www.myspace.com/kerrykirkham and read a couple of newspaper articles that were written about this ambitious show and its perky creator.

9:45PM - 9:55PM - Trailer - Mark Vasconcellos - Show and TellIt's a story about a 16 year old boy with cerebral palsy who wishes to be a commercial airline pilot for a day. With the help of The Make A Wish Foundation and The Boeing Company, he flies an MD11 simulator from LAX to San Francisco and back. It's an exciting and realistic experience when he is faced with solving aircraft emergencies in mid-flight.